Liberate older Aussies and let them help us all

COVID turned off the immigration tap. The reservoir of visa card holders, backpackers and overseas students dried up.

They predominantly worked in hospitality, tourism and health care – which just happen to be the three industries now screaming out for help.

Now the worst effects of the pandemic in the way of travel restrictions are over, it hasn’t resulted in the immigration we saw pre-covid.

Hence the desperate worker shortage. This is where “the grey army”, as it’s often described, comes in.

Letting pensioners work without penalty is by no means the panacea to our labour shortage, but it sure would go a long way to help lift the burden of industries trying to increase output and productivity, grow profits and therefore the economy.

National Seniors Australia has just released a report titled “Older Australians’ Perspectives on Working after Retirement”.

In it, we asked retired Australians if they would consider returning to the workforce.

Of 4000 people we surveyed, 17 per cent had already returned to the workforce and a further 19 per cent said they would consider it.

Unfortunately, these people face barriers preventing a return to the workforce; ageism being the biggest at 36 per cent followed by pension rules at 21 per cent.

And by pension rules we mean the Centrelink red tape where pensioners have to report their income to have their pension eligibility constantly assessed and reassessed.

You can earn money while receiving the pension but go past that limit and the hand brake comes on and you start to lose the pension and fast.

You can only work one day before facing this pension penalty.

Ageism is something employers can overcome by changing their attitudes. But pension rules are something the new government can fix.

Hospitality and aged care would love to be able to hire more older workers.

They tell me they find them reliable; they want to work, and in the case of aged care, show empathy to older people.

However, it’s the pension rules holding so many workers back from re-entering the workforce.

There are no such barriers in New Zealand. Across the ditch, older workers can do as many hours as they like and still get the pension, they just pay income tax like us.

Imagine that, more older workers filling jobs that are going begging, paying tax, increasing revenue for the government and spending more money in the economy.

What a generational defining moment that would be.